These days, Chantelle Bruinsma of Studio Expansion helps studio owners around the world find unprecedented freedom in running their businesses. But once upon a time, she was a choral conductor who guided young singers to sound their very best (in venues like the Sydney Opera House, no less). So it makes perfect sense that Bruinsma […]
Small businesses across the U.S. are keeping careful tabs on their states’ reopening schedules and making changes to their business models accordingly. As pandemic-related guidelines and timelines evolve, it’s important that you have a multilayered plan for the gradual reopening of your studio—one that prioritizes your dancers’ and staff’s health, reassures families that it’s safe […]
Talk about being close: Dana and Hugo Adames have been together 18 years and have two kids who love to dance—and the couple owns The Talent Factory Performing Arts Centre, with two locations, 550 students and a third site in the works. Dana, artistic director, and Hugo, general manager, have a method for how they […]
On Wednesday, March 11—two weeks ahead of a statewide stay-at-home mandate—Colorado Conservatory of Dance executive director Richard Cowden and artistic director Julia Wilkinson Manley made the difficult decision to take all of CCD’s classes online. As you’d expect, it wasn’t easy. “This chapter in our future book will be called ‘The 96 Hours From Hell,’” […]
For Shanna Kirkpatrick, owner of Chara Christian Dance Academy, the key to retaining 96.5 percent of her 1,000-student enrollment through COVID-19 has been communication: regular e-mail updates, mass studio text messages, personal phone calls and—perhaps most significantly—following up with Zoom no-shows. Kirkpatrick didn’t actually need to create any new protocol for this level of communication. […]
Silicon Valley Ballet announced in February 2016 that the company would close and file for bankruptcy. The closure included the school—and $250,000 in tuition money for the current school year and summer program was lost in the bankruptcy. But the collapse could not take down Dalia Rawson, the school director. A survivor who had weathered […]
Planning a recital pre-COVID-19 was enough to make even the most well-organized dance studio owner feel stressed. Add a global pandemic into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for a nervous breakdown—not to mention a serious revenue shortfall. Good thing studio owners have resilience and creativity to spare: These three owners reimagined and restructured […]
Rachel Arnold is a studio owner who knows how to transform lemons into lemonade. Rather than viewing stay-at-home orders as something to just power through at her Greenville, TX–based school, Dance Prodigy Studio, she’s turned online education into a chance to offer students and staff alike enrichment activities and community-building content. “I wanted great ideas […]
When Houston’s beloved METdance lost its lease in 2019, artistic director Marlana Doyle struck out on her own to open the Institute of Contemporary Dance Houston. With a new building, school and performing company, Doyle had carefully set the stage for an April 2020 grand opening. “I wanted to create a space for everyone, from […]
When Genevieve Weeks opened her children’s dance studio, Tutu School, in San Francisco in 2008, she quickly figured out that she’d hit on something good. “By 2009, I’d opened a second location, and that one also did quite well,” says Weeks. “I realized that this studio could thrive in a lot of communities.” At the […]